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But what must we do? How lies the path? How come to vision of
the inaccessible Beauty, dwelling as if in consecrated precincts,
apart from the common ways where all may see, even the profane?
He that has the strength, let him arise and withdraw into
himself, foregoing all that is known by the eyes, turning away
for ever from the material beauty that once made his joy. When he
perceives those shapes of grace that show in body, let him not
pursue: he must know them for copies, vestiges, shadows, and
hasten away towards That they tell of. For if anyone follow what
is like a beautiful shape playing over water- is there not a myth
telling in symbol of such a dupe, how he sank into the depths of
the current and was swept away to nothingness? So too, one that
is held by material beauty and will not break free shall be
precipitated, not in body but in Soul, down to the dark depths
loathed of the Intellective-Being, where, blind even in the
Lower-World, he shall have commerce only with shadows, there as
here.
"Let us flee then to the beloved Fatherland": this is the
soundest counsel. But what is this flight? How are we to gain the
open sea? For Odysseus is surely a parable to us when he commands
the flight from the sorceries of Circe or Calypso- not content to
linger for all the pleasure offered to his eyes and all the
delight of sense filling his days.
The Fatherland to us is There whence we have come, and There is
The Father.
What then is our course, what the manner of our flight? This is
not a journey for the feet; the feet bring us only from land to
land; nor need you think of coach or ship to carry you away; all
this order of things you must set aside and refuse to see: you
must close the eyes and call instead upon another vision which is
to be waked within you, a vision, the birth-right of all, which
few turn to use.
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